


outside, the stars fly to nowhere and everywhere

by iwaizumicooch



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Comfort, Discovery, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, M/M, iwaizumi is a little bit... broken and lost :(, oikawa is a little bit... dead, secrets of the universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29420079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwaizumicooch/pseuds/iwaizumicooch
Summary: Do you remember that time on the beach, Tooru? Where, in a drunken stupor, we saw the sun set in a wondrous haze of orange and yellow? The darkness consumed us both, then, but in the most beautiful way. Above us, the bright stars dotted the matted sky. We were alone, and you and I pointed upwards towards the cosmos, laughing. Where, after you told me your dreams and I mine, you turned to me and said we’d be together forever because I’m part of your dream.I remember the light kiss I gave you then; sometimes, I fear I’ll forget how sweet you tasted. I hope that never happens.I wish I could kiss you now.(Or, Iwaizumi discovers the hidden meanings, idiosyncrasies, and intricacies of the universe)
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	outside, the stars fly to nowhere and everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> i started this listening, on repeat, to _The Night We Met _by Lord Huron and finished to the tune of _First Love / Late Spring _by Mitski.____

* * *

Days after his death, he is desolate and empty.

He secludes himself in his room, locks the door, climbs into bed, and stares into oblivion. The oblivion stares back.

In bed, he notices that it always feels cold; that, no matter how many blankets donned on, he can’t help but feel unearthly numb. It is as if the source is not outside, but within him. Spreading, it freezes all in its wake, leaving nothing untouched, and, by the end, the becoming tundra stills and fractures.

Vivid, he remembers the pause coming from the other side of the phone. And then, painstakingly tortuous, the darting words, the fast-paced tempo, the _name_ which escapes his voice by the end of it. He feels it stab into him, the rigid edges and jagged point puncturing organs. It exits and enters, back and forth. There is no one holding the blade while blood splatters, the dagger painted darker with every entrance. Liquid life freezes at the precipice of his wounds, and, before any protest, he gets stabbed again.

Reciprocated laughs, fading kisses, and steps taken together echo against the sullen room walls and, before he knows it, he is left alone. There is nothing except for scars and projections. The mind scatters and is flooded black with acrid poison. It seeps into bone in the form of musings and questions, regrets and whys.

“Hajime,” he’d say while nudging Iwaizumi’s shoulder, the slushy in hand he’d gotten from the convenience store dangling. “You know I’ve only ever used the word love on you right? My past girlfriends, I’ve only ever used _like._ ” He takes a slurp and almost trips on a slit in the pavement. “With them, it was never love. But, with you,” His eyebrows raise while Iwaizumi’s eyes stare forward. “I use love.”

Iwaizumi only chuckles while repressing a slight grin, “Cool.”

“Cool? C’mon,” he jabs at Iwaizumi’s arm. “be just a _little_ romantic, Hajime. Just a little flirting wouldn't hurt, would it?”

Iwaizumi turns his head as he glows a slight red. “Oikawa...” he says, annoyed.

“ _Pshhhh, _”__ he exasperates, and then, teasingly, “You don’t deserve me.”

_I really didn’t, _he thinks to himself.__

“Fine, I’ll say it anyway. Hajime,” While walking, he makes eye contact. His eyes whisper vitality and it is as if it is reading words carved from his heart. “ _I love you. _”__

They walk home in the luminous streetlights and the shimmering moonlight.

* * *

Apparently, if humans were to go extinct, man-made structures would only last upwards of a hundred years. They say that material steel makes buildings stronger, that desert environments lessen the rate of rusting, and that engineering structure is essential to a long lifespan.

Though, without human maintenance, even the sturdiest of man’s creations tumble and fall within just a hundred years—one human lifespan. Yet, peculiarly, the stars in the sky, filled with helium and nitrogen, live for billions of years. That, with only helium and nitrogen and nothing else, they get to live forever.

Can you believe that? Gas, inputted into the nuclear forges of their cores, and out of it: _immortality._ That can’t be right: the light seen, the warmth felt, attributed to something naked to the human eye? No, there’s something else—there has to be. Something that maybe we haven’t discovered yet, or, have discovered but just haven’t yet understood. That, at the center of each star, there is an unknown force—a smith—that works the forges and controls the fire.

And, maybe, while on break, it stands aside, picks its feet up, and venerates at the universe around it. Then, finally, when the time comes—when they die—they do not go quietly; instead, they go out in supernovae flashes of effervescent light, where, just as the universe has given them entertainment for millenia, they too will return the favor with a lightshow, a spectacle. They are sent off in a blaze of gratitude and their remains are used to create new stars and planets.

What was that force, the thing at the epicenter of the universe, making all that does work?

Tooru had a favorite star. “ _The Methuselah Star _, Hajime,__ ” he’d explain. “a star older than the universe, _ _isn’t that cool?”__

He’d go on to describe it: how it was fourteen billion years old—” _Fourteen million human lifetimes, Hajime._ ”—its location in the Libra constellation, and its distance from earth.

And then, afterward, he’d add on, “I like to think of that as ‘ _Tooru and Hajime’s star. _’”__

This surprised Iwaizumi; he’d thought Oikawa was sappy, sure, but to name a star after them? “Stars? Really, Oikawa?”

“What? Didn’t you hear me, Hajime? Fourteen million lifetimes,” he reiterates. “Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Iwaizumi opens his mouth, but closes it. Maybe, just _maybe,_ immortality with Oikawa wasn’t such a bad thing.

He smiles. “I wasn’t paying attention, which one is it again?” 

With his finger, pointing to the boundless cosmos, he isolates and identifies, and Iwaizumi notes and memorizes.

* * *

Lately, people tell him with a pat on the shoulder, almost mockingly playfully, that, “How you holding up? We could really use our ace back. How about trying to come back to school?”

And, always, in the end, he tells them, “I’ll try,” and, back at home, Iwaizumi crawls back into bed, under the sheets. He is left alone with fragments and more blood-stained daggers.

_Our ace._

That sentence reverberates back and forth in his head.

_–and setter._

But there is no setter, not _his _setter at least.__

Over the days, he comes to forget about Methuselah and immortality fades until it is barren, and then, eventually, it turns to just _mortality._

* * *

He’s dragged into black void, darker than the night around them, by two people. One of them screams and only then does he remember who he is. Music and panic rattle the car’s interior. Trembling hands speed down the roadway and an expressionless face rests, breathing slight and eyes creeping open, on his lap.

Features pass by outside the window like clothes in a washing machine. He feels his hand comb through soft hair.

“How is he?” he hears, quick and terrified, from the driver’s seat. The engine rumbles below them.

“He’s breathing,” he responds without checking.

Realizing, he bends down and inches closer, his ear beside a mouth. He listens intently while eyes freeze and the world races away, scared.

Thinking back, this was where, rushing to the hospital with a departing star rested on his lap, his vision strayed and his future died, and then, resurrected into something unrecognizable. Where, unknowingly lying to a terrified mother, thinking he was helping, his centerpiece was lost to the unforgiving ocean—his vocal cords cut, unable to call for help.

* * *

_Do you remember that time on the beach, Tooru? Where, in a drunken stupor, we saw the sun set in a wondrous haze of orange and yellow? The darkness consumed us both, then, but in the most beautiful way. Above us, the bright stars dotted the matted sky. We were alone, and you and I pointed upwards toward the cosmos, laughing. Where, after you told me your dreams and I mine, you turned to me and said we’d be together forever because I’m part of your dream._

_I remember the light kiss I gave you then; sometimes, I fear I’ll forget how sweet you tasted. I hope that never happens._

_I wish I could kiss you now._

* * *

Oikawa is buried in a small and secluded spot near their childhood homes. The headstone is tiny and the plot is covered with pink blossom trees, the scent of spring flowers, and green, constantly cut grass.

It has become a daily occurrence, his visits.

He comes during the day. The brightness and vivacity of the sea of pink all around calls. Their petals fly and flap like fluttering birds; overfilled with potential, they float and never seem to land.

There is a bench near his grave that Iwaizumi likes to sit at. Around him, above him, usually lies the radiant rays of the sun and the merrydew scent of grass.

But today, gray clouds are emblazoned above and suffocate the sun. It looks as if it is about to rain and he hopes it does, because he wants the drowning descent of pouring rain to distract him—to remind him what it means to feel, to be alive. He wishes to be drowned in a stampede of water. Wishes it to pelt at his skin, seep into his lungs and heart, and inundate him to what deafening nothingness feels like.

But rain never comes. It never comes and once again the world, pitiless, spits drought and oblivion down on him. 

He walks from the bench forward and turns his stare from the blackening, blackened, and then sprouting sky.

“Why did they take you?” he asks.

There is only silence, but that in it of itself is an answer.

_There is no reason. It was life’s chance. It was no one’s decision and no one’s to blame._

Methuselah glows bright, but he doesn’t notice it.

Having no reason at all makes him all the more angry. He can’t find an answer, and a gurgling, roaring pool builds deep in his stomach while he searches.

“Close your ears, ‘Kawa.”

Eyes dart upward and arms outstretched, challenging and cursing toward the toenail moon, taunting clouds, and waiting sun.

Finally, he yells deep and guttural like a wounded boar. It reverberates all around and he can feel the sound waves dart all about. The trees shake and flutter at the magnitude of it, and birds startle and frighten, their flights dotting the gray sky like stars in the night. He can’t decide if time has slowed down or sped up because his lungs feel invincible and endless.

The sky screams back at him and Iwaizumi pants like a dog as he closes his eyes, hands still calling and open. Then, a light droplet of water. Then another, and another, and then one more until it is gushing rain. The dam breaks and explodes. He grins and mocks because it feels as if he has beaten the world.

In what seems like forever, he feels overwhelmed with pure joy. He screams while ecstatic jolts of electricity spring up and down. The world bends and breaks around him. He laughs hysterically and prances about in the showering rain.

He opens his eyes hoping that maybe immortality can be achieved after all. But when his vision clears, no one is there but the syncopathic choir of pouring rain that no longer kneads the knots away, but instead only stabs skin, clothes, and hair. They sing a song he no longer recognizes.

The light in front, behind, and all around glows a rich red. The headstone is still printed with the words “Rest In Peace” and there is still an end date, a death date. The heart feels worn and barren, as if it has pumped its last bit of silvery gold.

The rain never stops and Methuselah dims until it is left waiting for the next night to try again.

* * *

Strangely, Iwaizumi liked to dream.

It was both the nightmares and the memories.

And although those were the times where he felt most broken and fractured, it was worth it. It was worth it because in his eyes, relighting that fire that had been snuffed out for a few minutes every night was _everything._

Every look and touch feeding black pitch into the growing fire.

He could say those three words that would hold off the horde. And, he would respond, voice beaming and blood pumping. His eyes would sparkle once more while flowing blood inked hypnotizing warmth.

“I love you too, Hajime!” he’d say with the brightest smile and most beautiful eyes. Then, Iwaizumi could pinch his cheeks, hold his hand, or kiss his lips, and afterwards, have the time to do the other two—all before the flames turned them to ash.

But, sometimes, the dreams are set before they started dating, and, somehow, the fire is all the more beautiful because there is something profound in knowing that you have yet to kiss, yet to confess, yet to _bloom._ Certainty and uncertainty are all the same and it is exhilarating. In those dreams, they are nothing more than friends and that is okay because they are still young. To them, this is only the preamble; there is still a play to begin, mysterious to decipher, firsts to experience, and the universe to know.

It is like Schrodinger’s cat. The cosmic superposition where dead and alive are the same; _hold your breath, Hajime, flip a coin, and open the box._

The mornings after those types of dreams were always the hardest, because, although fire cleanses and purifies, it also destroys and burns; and, similarly, when opening the box, there is always a chance that death meets you at the ends of the world, scythe and hanging skull in hand.

* * *

The time in the hospital, the room is hot and cold at the same time. Outside, the prancing of doctors and nurses gives off the false sense of liveliness, of beating hearts and working lungs. He sits with fidgeting fingers and jouncing legs until the doctor tells them it's okay to approach.

He lays in a desolate room covered with unsatisfactory blankets. It’s not fitting.

The steps echo on the dead tiles beneath. He feels he is marching to his own death, and the _pitter-patters_ of shoes create a cacophonous symphony of _tips_ and _taps_ , of inches forward, and years lost. Tears haven’t begun; he’s determined to see Oikawa one last time, unobstructed with falling tears.

To his front, his breathing is hoarse and faint. Horrifying separated beeps bounce off the walls followed by the compressing and decompressing of a machine beside the bed. Tubes enter and exit and he is terrifyingly still.

As soon as he spots him, his eyes glow a bright gold. They spout waterfalls of relief and sadness. It calls, morbid and unsuccessfully comforting, and he moves forward. Each step taken is harder than the last, and the world slows and empties. The night around them grows impossibly darker and what is shared feels like it can never be told. Diamonds are made and broken in an instant.

He can hear a woman scream and yelp beside him, muffled. In front, he tries to find his eyes so that he can leave—so that he can get lost of this place and, in its place, drive off together to somewhere known. His mouth stills, and he imagines it opening, just slightly, to say his name like he had done millions of times before. But, he doesn't, and the black night floods in and whispers in his ear, dagger in hand, and waits.

He kneels next to the bed and notices just how shallow his breathing is. A hand is held and fingers interlock. His face buries itself in their cold hands and he finds himself trying to ghost the tides away.

A thought enters and he begins to cry because what ever happened to immortality?

* * *

He doesn’t know how or why, but he finds himself back at the grave, sitting at the bench. In front, the plot of grass where he begged to the sky, felt more alive than ever before, and died once again.

By now, he’s given up on hoping, because, what’s the point?

He starts to wonder why he even was hoping in the first place. Because they were special? Unique? But were they? 

_Yes, right?_

It all felt so real. When, ocean eyes would look at Iwaizumi, his blood would waltz and jump, begging to be let out of his veins and into the world—only to see his eyes. Where life and death would cease to exist because, with him, he felt everlasting and forever. What was that if not the meaning of the universe?

And so, he waited. For days, weeks, and months, he waited for the universe to do the impossible, to break its own laws just for them.

But, disappointedly, nothing ever came, and Iwaizumi began to believe the universe was nothing but stolen time—chances and coincidences, no rights and all wrongs.

How can shattered glass get even more shattered?

“Hello there.”

The grass below swayed with the wind as he glanced upward to see a small and frail old woman.

“Do you mind if I sit with you for a bit? My legs are getting a bit sore.”

She spoke and her voice was soft and aged and full. The voice—not the words, but the syllables and vowels spoken from it—felt like it told a story. It felt caressing and it confused him. It confused him because she looked so nice and kind and it had been a long time since he’s seen that in someone, in the world, in _him_.

Iwaizumi nodded.

“Oh, thank you.”

She sat down and life fell subject to her wrinkles and silver hair. It called and lured and felt as if she spoke when she never spoke. She smiled a smile not meant for people so old.

“This place is so beautiful. Are you visiting someone?” she asks.

He answers, “I am.”

“Oh, they must be very lucky to rest in a place like this.”

“I agree. It’s beautiful.”

She lets down her smile only to release a small chuckle. “For someone so young, you know how to appreciate nature. I always thought that was for old people.”

Smiles are exchanged though Iwaizumi’s wades higher.

She continues: “The person you’re visiting, were they special?”

He only nods, “ _Very. _”__ He tries to smile.

“My husband is buried here. Over there,” she says as she points across the trees to nowhere and everywhere. “He was such a beautiful man.”

They pause.

“When did he die?” he asks.

“A year ago. From cancer.” She lets out a chuckle. “Even when he lost his hair I still thought he was perfect.”

For a time, only the air fills the space around them.

“Do you miss him?” he finally asks.

“Oh. Always.” Her smile stands tall—taller, still.

Her eyes sparkled and she glowed pink. Not a single tear danced down her fragile skin.

* * *

_“Iwa?”_

_He feels the ground below him come alive, and he sinks further, the earth acting as a pillow softer than the clouds floating above._

_“What’s up?”_

_“I think I’d like to live forever like this,” he says._

_A hand searches for its place in the soft grass, their blades light in touch and infinite in possibility._

_“Really?”_

_“Yeah. Yeah…”_

_“Some say immortality is a curse.” Iwaizumi muses._

_“Not to me,” Oikawa says while a comet flies overhead._

_“Why?”_

_The world fills and no other humans are seen within miles. He feels the plot of land they sit upon the same as it was millions of years ago, untainted with man's greed._

_“Because it’s you I’m with.”_

_A small chuckle. “Won’t you get tired of me in forever?”_

_The stars paint the night sky in a flurry of bright lights and darting comets in an ever-expanding universe. It’s beautiful._

_“I like the fact that the universe never stops growing.”_

_“And why’s that?”_

_“Because I don’t understand it. It expands and grows and no one can ever explain to me why—and I don’t think I’d ever want them to. To me, it's comforting. Solacing.”_

_He turns wayward and crests the blackened sea._

_“I have a theory, Hajime, that when the universe stops expanding, the world and everything in it ends. It ends because then there are no more mysteries.”_

_Iwaizumi hums, “That’s interesting.” He pauses and thinks; finally, he adds, “Personally, I don’t think the universe will ever stop.”_

_“Why?” he says, curious._

_“I don’t know.”_

_Their eyes meet and it is as if the birth of gallant stars. Another offspring of infinity._

_“If I knew then the world would end. There’d be no more mysteries. But, still, I think I’m certain; I just have a gut feeling of forever.”_

_Lost in time and space, they laugh another inch, another parsec, another millenia. Methuselah's brightness ebbs like a beating heart entranced in a melodic waltz._

_Iwaizumi started to think that maybe if they had enough time, then the secrets of the universe would uncover themselves. That, caught in the middle of two colliding worlds, their crash course toward ascension was nothing short of inevitable. Maybe, then, that’s why they had to die, because they threatened the fate of the world. Because, cruelly, if they had come to find the key to the door, then there’d be no more mysteries to decipher, no more questions to answer._

_But, the thing is, there would. There would because on the ground and in the sky still laid, italicized and bolded, the question of them: Why was it them who almost did the impossible?_

* * *

“What was his name, your husband?”

She crosses her legs. “Hajime. His name was Hajime,” she responds.

He could see her cheeks warm at the name.

“Oh. That’s my name.”

“Oh, is it now? That’s wonderful!”

The trees moves and their branches look like held hands.

“What did he do?” he asks.

“Well, he was a writer.”

Her eyes play a film only seen by her.

“And you?”

“Me? I was a florist." Color floods her skin as if her past has come to life. "Every time I visit, I bring him a bouquet of flowers. I would be glad to bring one for your friend.”

“Yes, please. I think he’d like that.” His eyes twitch at the thought of him.

“Ah, so it’s a he, this friend.” She scoots a tiny bit closer; close enough that her light perfume is smelt. It is nice.

“Yes, that’s correct, but more than a friend.”

“More?”

A small animal, a chipmunk, scurries across the earth in front of them, hoarding in its mouth bunches of acorns.

“He was my _everything, _”__ he says while eyeing the clouds.

“Tell me about him,” she prompts.

“I can’t.”

“Well, why not?”

He pauses and turns his gaze to the grass below him, swaying, twitching at his feet. He thinks about the bundles of blades suffocating under his shoe.

“I can’t control what I do when I talk about him.”

They pause and a bird flies above them, its feathers and wings fluorescent from the yawning sun. The silence moves and lives like a river. He feels an urge to change the subject.

“Though your husband: Can you tell me more about him, please?”

“Of course. I would love to,” she says with a smile.

* * *

_When could silence between two people ever sound so beautiful?_

_“Hajime?”_

_The sun readies itself for slumber just in front of them. The clouds blanket the canvas above, and the birds serenade all that lives with songs of tomorrow._

_“Yeah, Oikawa?”_

_“I think the universe wants us to be together, have you ever thought about that?”_

_Iwaizumi chuckles, “Yeah, well, how else do you explain how I can put up with you? Of course the universe wants us to be together.”_

_“And if the universe ever changes its mind?”_

_“Well,” he thinks for a second. “then fuck the universe.”_

_“Fuck the universe?” Oikawa seems surprised by this, and then, afterward, begins to cackle._

_“Yeah.”_

_“That’s a very Iwaizumi-esque thing to say. Are you sure you want to fight the universe?”_

_Iwaizumi can only think Oikawa is, right now, picturing his boyfriend fist-fighting the universe—and, most likely losing._

_“Don’t laugh. Well, why wouldn’t I?” He smiles. “We don’t need the universe.”_

_Oikawa stops laughing and leans into him. “And if the universe is stronger?” Oikawa asks._

_“It won’t be, trust me.”_

_He turns his head from the sun to his eyes—they are equally as shining. “And why are you so certain?”_

_“You know why.”_

_He laughs, “Because you love me?”_

_“Yes,” he turns and they meet eye-to-eye. The sun illuminates the pavement below them and the trees around them dance with the wind. “Because I love you.”_

* * *

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yes, of course,” she says.

“Am I supposed to stop loving him? To stop hurting. Am I supposed to _stop? _”__

He fights back tears as his eyes fill with water. In front, her face leaves, and in its place is life’s own statue.

“Oh, honey,” she says. “No. No, of course not.” She scoffs. “My husband: I loved him then, I love him now, and I will keep on loving him. Why? Because I just do. Because loving him now is just as beautiful and perfect as it was back then.”

“But,” a sonata plays in his eyes. “I miss him so much. I keep missing and it hurts so much that sometimes I wish I could forget him, that I never met him, that he never became to me what he became.” He clenches a piece of shirt deep in his palms. “And I hate that I think that because he was so perfect and happy and full of life that he deserved the world. I wish I gave him that world—but I couldn’t. I couldn't because I didn’t have enough time. How–”

He pauses as the sonata reaches its climax.

“How do I remember like you do? How can I not cry whenever I think of him, of us, of what we could have been?”

The accompaniment behind him reaches a fermata and dissolves into nothing; they turn the page and the conductor raises his baton.

* * *

_“Hajime, tell me something, where do you picture yourself when you grow up?”_

_The room is dark, and the world outside is darker. They lay with Oikawa’s head planted atop Iwaizumi’s chest. It rises and falls, and his ear hears a heart beat metronome-like, steady, and calm._

_“Where do I picture myself?”_

_“Yeah. After college, how do you see yourself? Where are you, who is there, and how do you feel? That sort of thing.”_

_“So basically where everything is perfect?”_

_A car speeds down the road outside and the hoots of an owl is heard._

_“Yeah, I’m curious.”_

_“Hm.” He pauses, looks down at Oikawa, and thinks for a bit. “When I’m older I don’t think I would care where I am or who I’m with, just that I’m happy.”_

_Buried in his chest, Oikawa chuckles, the vibrations being felt up and down his body. He rises, and plants his chin atop Iwaizumi's chest. “That’s very vague, Iwa-chan—and cliche.”_

_He laughs, “Yeah, well, it’s true though.”_

_There is an absence after that. The night pauses to take a breath, and the moonlight takes its chance to put its foot in the door._

_Thoughtfully, he asks, “Are you happy? Now, I mean?”_

_Iwaizumi looks at him for a second, analyzing, “Yes, ‘Kawa, I’m happy.”_

_“Why?”_

_Iwaizumi reclines his head back onto pillows behind him, and closes his eyes, leaving Oikawa alone on his chest. He ruffles his hair, “Shhh, let’s go to sleep. I’ll tell you why tomorrow.”_

_Tomorrow. Tomorrow. There is always tomorrow._

* * *

For a time, she stays silent and looks at the pink blossom trees, the grass, and nature all around them. Her leg bounces up and down like a justling bus as she wraps one hand over the other. Finally, her gaze returns back satisfied to Iwaizumi.

She breaks the silence, “Do you want to know what my husband always insisted existed between us? What he told me on his deathbed?”

He nods.

Slowly, she takes a breath, “He said, ‘Whatever happens to me or us by the earth or life or disease or nature doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because even though I’ll be gone, we won’t. When I’m gone,’” she raises her arm to the sky. “‘look to the stars, to the clouds, to your flowers—wherever you’ll look, I’ll be there. And then, afterward, we’ll be together again because love transcends life, death, and mortality because it is so _unnaturally natural. _’”__ Glowing red, she turns to him, “Isn’t that beautiful? ___Unnaturally natural, _” she repeats.____

She puts a hand on Iwaizumi. “Do you understand, Hajime? I take him with me wherever I go and in all that I see, and I marvel at the beauty of it, of _him_. There is something else I learned from him, do you want to know what it is?”

He nods. The sky above turns a comforting blue, and the tiny blotches of space is seen; it is as if the individual brush strokes engrained in a timeless painting.

“I learned that the odds of existing at the same time as the love of my life must be next to impossible.” A smile moves into the confines of her mouth and settles in as if it is planning to stay forever. “I learned that maybe the universe does work in my favor after all, because my life was with him and his with mine; and, when I die, I am certain that the universe will still have my back, and I will once again get to know him.”

He is taken back to his smile. “We may not have any memory of our previous life together, but that is all the more beautiful because getting to know and fall in love with him was life’s greatest treasure. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

A tear halfway across the universe morphs into an effervescent gem to support a dying star.

She leans in closer. “There is another thing.”

He waits as bandages and casts are torn off.

“The day we married, he told me of a quote,” she looks upward, consumed in thought, and her eyes glisten life’s favorite things like a film projector. “‘One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough.’ And then, after the music stopped, we did just that—we promised.”

The earth watches overhead.

“And do you know what he told me moments before he died?”

Far-off mountains still.

“With a dying smile, he said: ‘ _You didn’t kiss me enough. _’”__

Orchestras play tomorrow’s symphonies.

“But that is okay. It is okay because next time I see him I _will_ kiss him enough.” He remembers how sweet he tasted. “Do you understand my certainty, Hajime? Do you understand my truth—the universe’s truth? That life and death are useless because we treat them as starts and endings when they are no such thing; _my life started when I met him and it will end when I stop. _”__

He feels pillowy tears stream down his face.

“You and me, Hajime, we're immortal.”

Snot amasses and it looks as though he has been through a tragedy, but he laughs and chuckles.

He finally answers, “ _I’m immortal. _”__

Her smile reappears. “Yes.” It widens. “Yes, you are.”

She runs a thumb down his cheek. “The secrets of the universe are not so hard to decipher, now, are they? Now, stop crying and tell me about the man who immortalized Hajime.”

* * *

The night around them silents into the clouds and the grass at their feet keel over, asleep. The birds come home and nearby streetlights alight, the grave in front stays to stone, though he likes to think the earth underneath jolts alive with the full moon.

Stars paint the night sky and Methuselah peeks over the dark blue horizon. It finds its home and blends in with the rest.

“The stars are beautiful tonight, are they not?” she says.

Even camouflaged, Methuselah stands tall, and it is as if fading gas seeps into the air and into his nose, reconciling for its abandonment and reminding him of what once was—what still is.

“There is a star, Methuselah, that scientists believe to be older than the universe,” he ponders. “How can that be possible?”

His eyes find their way while her’s stands idle, unknowing. She doesn’t attempt to search for the star, and it is as if she knows it is not for her.

She pauses and they stay silent. “Now,” she chuckles. “That is something I do not know.”

Together, they laugh.

_Another mystery discovered, another answer to seek. The world doesn’t end and, in that second, the universe lengthens._

For a time, all they do is stare in amazement at the stars. At _Polaris, Betelgeuse,_ and _Sirius,_ their fluorescence occupies paintings in between infinite spaces of black. They marvel and wonder, predict and infer. They muse about their musings and from their questions sprout even more questions. The phrase, “ _Well, I don’t know, _”__ repeats over and over. It bounces toward a direction and, in a split second, it comes from the opposite, as if it has travelled the entirety of the world.

And then, curious, he asks, “When, do you think, will someone find the meaning of the universe?”

After a short time, she responds while smiling, “I don’t know.” He laughs because he should have seen this coming, but, before he can come up with another question, she adds, “Do you know the astronomer Tycho Brahe?”

Straying, he sits confused for a second before answering, “No, I can’t say I do.”

She smiles—this is something she _does know._ “Well, Tycho Brahe was an astronomer who spent his entire life finding the meaning of the universe.” A comet darts across the sky and dies halfway. “And then, finally, after twenty-five years, somewhat angry, the noblemen confront him. They knock on his door and say, ‘Wake up, old man! Wake up!’” She places her hands in her lap. "'The king wants to know wants to know what you've been doing for the last two decades.'"

Iwaizumi listens intently. “To them, he answers back, plainly, ‘ _Well, I've been looking at the sky._ ’” She points upwards. “And then, confused, they ask, 'What's the utility in that? What purpose does that serve?'" Iwaizumi leans in. "His response: 'Well, I admit that I was trying to find the meaning of the universe, and I haven't found it.'" She grins at the part coming up. "‘But I believe that someday, somebody will. And I will find comfort in the fact that I have saved that someone twenty-five years of labor.’”

She takes a breath. “So, Hajime, to answer your question: No, I don’t know when the meaning of the universe will be found, but, like Tycho Brahe, I at least find solace in the fact that it is not an _if._ ”

Crickets chirp and flowers bloom. “Someday, because of Tycho Brahe, me, and you, someone _will_ find the meaning of the universe—and, who knows? _Maybe, somebody already has. _”__

Iwaizumi looks up to Methuselah and smiles.

_You hear that Tooru?_

* * *

Over the years, the frequency of his visits diminish from days, weeks, to years in between. The time of his visits changes from day to night, so that they can sit with the stars.

Life, then, resembles that day in the car, speeding to the hospital, with Oikawa’s head resting atop his lap, quiet and barely moving. Though, this time, all else is phased away and disappears except for them.

The world turns to black and they are no longer in a car. Nothing rumbles, and they sit on an endless plane of metallic dark. Below and above allude to endless infinity. Beneath him, Oikawa's breathes rise and fall, and his hand ruffled deep into his hair feels impossibly soft.

Then, he opens his eyes, and a bright light appears. Stilled, they stare, and, together, their hands subconsciously find each other. Methuselah sparkles overhead.

“You never told me Methuselah’s lifespan,” he says.

“Well,” he laughs. “That one, the scientists haven't found out yet.” He plants a kiss on their entwined hands. “But I like to think we have at least a few billion years left.”

They turn their gaze from the star to each other’s eyes. Methuselah dims and finds itself in their pupils, still shining bright.

* * *

In a world defined by limitations and laws, it seems now to be redefined—not even, _reborn._ Where once he would have forgotten and suppressed, he now remembers. He remembers Methuselah, immortality, and the past, and creates for himself the future.

Lately, he sometimes ponders his first words to him, though, he concludes, that this is useless because first words nor do last words matter. And instead, what matters is said in between, or, perhaps, what is never even said, but implied and imagined. What else is the human mind for if not to imagine and interpret? After all, that is where most human achievement and beauty is created, where the impossible is done, and where the universe is dissected.

 _Yes,_ where the universe came to be known not only in name, but also in concept and understanding. Where, under the night sky, in front of the setting sun, and on silent nights together, the meaning of the universe was slowly discovered and quickly forgotten in a haze of grief—and, only in a conversation with a mystical, nameless old lady, to be rediscovered again, more beautiful than it ever has been.

* * *

Sometime over the years, Iwaizumi decided to pick a star in the night sky and name it. Coincidentally, he lands on the brightest one, the star _Sirius_ , and decides to call it “ _Tooru_.” And, every night, he looks up to the infinite blackness and makes sure he remembers.

“ _Tooru. Tooru, _”__ he whispers into the night, etching it into his memory for next time—for when he will really need it.

When, in the next life, he can maybe spot a shining, bright star in the sky and remember, curiously, that, “Ah, that’s _Tooru._ That’s ___my___ star, where I died and lived and currently reside, forever, in the arms of a man whom I am yet to meet, know, and love.”

_Yes, in the next life._

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> alright shawties, thanks for reading. shares and kudos would be greatly appreciated :) alright uuuuhhhhhh goobiye


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